Recovery from election fraud: the Tower Hamlets story
Release Date: 01/14/2020
Are human beings machines?
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If, as Joe believes, human beings are machines, why are we bothering to build artificial intelligence. If we succeed all we will have done is create new humans. And there is a well know, tried and tested way of making new humans which is more fun and much cheaper. Meanwhile it seems that the best definition of artificial intelligence that we have is anything that computers can't do right now. Whereas the definition of human stupidity is everything that humans can do right now. If this sounds harsh this is the week when Embassy staff of many nations are being withdrawn from Ukraine
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‘Really tangible benefits’ of digital support for unpaid care are here, now
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MapLondon event December 19: speakers discuss data, digital mapping, planning, and citizen engagement
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Recovery from election fraud: the Tower Hamlets story
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Asmat Hussain, Corporate Director of Governance tells Rachael Tiffen of CIFAS what happened next after the High Court’s overturn of its 2014 mayoral election
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Could a digital approach solve care managers' and providers’ problems with medicines support?
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Councils collaborate to explore digital potential in administration of new Liberty Protection Safeguards
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Jane Hancer (CC2i) and Damian Nolan (Halton BC) describe how a five-council collaboration supported by the LGA and match-funded NHS Digital will deliver via the Social Care Innovation Accelerator
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WM ADASS: immersive data presentation will change health & care commissioning
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‘It's never gone this well!’ – council service teams on building their own IT
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Transformation done right is ‘with’ and not ‘to’ says LB Havering team
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Chief Operating Officer Jane West and transformation lead Susie Faulkner describe a process designed to bring staff and residents along with change.
info_outlineAsmat Hussain, Corporate Director of Governance tells Rachael Tiffen of CIFAS what happened next after the High Court’s overturn of its 2014 mayoral election
The former mayor was found guilty of corrupt and illegal practices, including vote-rigging, by an election court in 2015, so the council needed to rebuild trust with the authorities, staff and local residents.
Asmat became Tower Hamlets’ statutory monitoring officer after the fraud had happened, along with a whole new leadership team including chief executive William Buckley and a new financial director.
With commissioners in charge following a PriceWaterhouseCoopers investigation, the council developed a delivery plan, putting in place measures to ensure members’ decisions were made within the rules; greater transparency and openness around mayoral decisions; relaunch of whilstleblowing procedures; staff training and a website where members of the public can report concerns about fraud.
Tower Hamlets underwent a Peer Review conducted by the LGA in June 2019, which concluded among more detailed findings that they were now ‘a normal council’.
At the time of this interview, in November 2019, the council was just starting preparations for the December 2019 general election.